"I want De La Hoya next!"-Zab Judah.

Zab "Super" Judah mounted a masterful attack of carefully applied pressure that slowly wore down fellow southpaw Cory Spinks. Cracks began to show in the third when Judah capped off a three-punch combination with a hard straight left that had Spinks wobbly. In the fifth, Judah knocked the champion off balance with a body shot and had Spinks down in the seventh only to have the referee rule it a slip. Judah

Click for larger image © Tom Casino/Showtime

smelled blood in the eighth and began to rip into Spinks with sheer ferocity, typified by the Brooklynite pile driving the St. Louis man into a corner and hammering him with a hard right as Spinks complained to the referee. Sweat flew in a shower from the champion's head and with it, his hopes of retaining his IBF, WBC and WBA belts.

The audience, which had been trying to rally their man with chants of "Cory! Cory!" was now edgy and the threat of fan violence hung heavy in the packed Savvis Center.

Don't miss this exclusive coverage from Curtis McCormick in St. Louis, covering an historic night of boxing at ringside.

In the ninth, Spinks rallied, punishing Judah with volleys of blindingly fast punches that couldn't seem to miss when the challenger tried to press his advantage from the last round. Spinks circled Judah effectively, raining down combinations as Zab bobbed and weaved. All of a sudden, a Judah counter had Spinks on silly street and on the canvas. No slip was ruled this time as a brief, horrible, hushed silence was broken by hoarse cries for Spinks to get up and get Judah.

But the former light welterweight champion had found the proper moment to strike. Like a cobra, Judah struck again and again. He rammed home torrents of punches that had the hometown hero in dire straits along the ropes, trying to clinch but incapable of doing so. Zab hammered Cory across the ring into a corner where a vicious shot felled Spinks once again. This time, the referee stepped in and waved off the action.

Judah went absolutely mad and into the arms of his father/trainer Yoel, while the Judah cornermen jump around the ring, making frenzied throat slashing gestures to the St. Louis audience while screaming incoherent statements from the ring.

Fights broke out across the Savvis Center as a U.S. indoor boxing arena record audience polarized into distinct warring camps. Subsidiary fights broke out on the edges of the initial skirmishes as an overtaxed security staff tried to deal with it all.

Zab Judah has exorcised the ghosts of his checkered past and is now the new undisputed welterweight champion of the world and is calling out the Golden Boy, Oscar de La Hoya.

Curtis McCormick can be reached at thomaspointrd@aol.com

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